MORTON Football Club’s owners say they hope for progress after concern over a failure of communication by the club escalated to involve its major sponsor.
The board of majority shareholder Morton Club Together (MCT) was not told by the club about a registration ban imposed on it by FIFA.
As a result it asked its representatives on the Greenock’s club board to stand down but has since been told that they — and the club’s chairman — need to stay in place if major sponsor Dalrada‘s support is to continue.
MCT issued a statement explaining: “We have a duty to be transparent to our members, and regretfully we must make it clear that the club did not inform Morton Club Together, as its owners, about this ban from the governing body.
“The handling of the matter was also particularly frustrating at a time when MCT and its directors have been proactively engaging with the board at Cappielow and working hard on a number of fronts to try and improve the working relationship between the two and the running of the club.”
It continued: “Following the failure to notify the club’s owners about the FIFA registration ban, Morton Club Together can confirm that on Monday evening it formally asked its representatives on the GMFC board, Graham Barr and Sam Robinson, to both stand down from their positions, and it awaited their responses to that request.
“The board of MCT has subsequently been notified officially that the continued backing of GMFC sponsors Dalrada is dependent on those representatives, and the current club chair [John Laird], remaining on the board at Cappielow.
“Morton Club Together has always been committed to forming a productive partnership with the other key stakeholders involved with the club and it plans to hold talks with its counterparts at the earliest opportunity to make progress collectively in a way that serves the best interests of the football club as a community-owned asset.
“We would meantime like to thank all of our members for their patience over the past week and their continued support of MCT, something which has put it on track to soon reach the milestone total of £1 million invested into Greenock Morton FC.”
